Jeanette Furlong was selected as the North Coast Region Sheep Proficiency Winner. She will be going on to the State Contest next. Jeanette was also selected to attend the SLE Conference in Sacramento during National FFA Week and she is also running for State Office. Way to go Red!

​FFA Week activities and dress up days were successful! The 2nd Annual FFA Rodeo Rally was a lot of fun for everyone. Mr. Sacheli "won" the Kiss the Pig Contest and Parker & Lupe won the Best All Around Cowboy and Cowgirl Award and $150 each!

Check out the new Braves Welding website. It features products that you can purchase that are made by students in the agriculture mechanics pathway. All items can be modified to suit your needs. All funds raised from the sale of items go towards purchasing new materials, equipment and supplies for the program. You can use PayPal for your products.

The Tomales FFA Officers returned from a 4 day retreat last Friday. We stayed in Pt Reyes this year and took 5 local Ag Business tours as part of the event. Everyone had a great time and the officers are excited to get back to school.

​The Tomales Ag Department was selected as the Outstanding Single Person Ag Program in the State by the California Ag Teachers Association in June at the CATA Conference in Cal Poly SLO.

Congratulations to Jeanette Furlong for winning North Coast Regional President. She is also in the State Finals for Extemporaneous Speaking. She is also a State Finalist for her Sheep Production SAE. Jeanette and 13 other students will be attending State Convention this week.

​It has been a busy year with the addition of a new Sustainable Ag Biology class. The Soil Chemistry class is going well and there are a lot of freshman in Ag Mechanics this year.

​Progress is slowly being made on the school farm and hopefully we will break ground this summer.

​Enrollment is up this year and hopefully we will hold our numbers for next year.

Congratulations to Jeanette Furlong for winning a state proficiency in Ag Communications. She is moving on to the National Contest in October! Thirteen members attend the FFA State Convention in April in Fresno. Also 4 out of 5 members placed gold in the Sonoma Section Project Competition and Jeanette won the Division I award also. She was also selected as the North Coast Vice President back in early April. Our 88th Annual FFA Awards Banquet is on June 4th this year at 6pm.

I finally found out that we received the CTE grant so we will hopefully be breaking ground on the school farm this summer. We have the planters for the school garden, but we are still waiting on the Maintenance Department to put in the main water line so we can branch off it. Our new FFA van from the NCAP grant should be here next week with any luck.

Four Tomales FFA members received there State FFA Degrees this year: Lane Norman, Rio Pagliaro, Tiana Minto and Nomar Isais. We also have 3 students competing in the sectional speaking contests this week. Haylee Furlong will be doing the Creed Contest with Jeanette Furlong and Abby Spaletta competing in the Impromtu Speaking Contest. Good luck girls! There is a new scholarship for seniors this year in the Ag Program. The Mendoza Family has created a Joey Mendoza Memorial Scholarship. The application is due on March 24th.

The school garden is moving along slowly. We should be picking up water troughs for the planters next week. No word from the CDE yet on the CTE Incentive grant which will bring in $85,000 each year for 3 years to build the school farm. Our new van has been ordered by the NCAP grant and will arrive over the summer because we are in round 2 of van deliveries.

Last, congrats to Jeanette Furlong for winning the North Coast Region Proficiency in Ag Communications and being slated for Regional Office.

Tomales FFA will be on the radio twice on month starting on December 7th from 12:30 to 1pm on KWMR 90.5 in Point Reyes. The segment will air during the Food and Farmshed Report.

Progress is moving slowly on the school garden and school farm. Hopefully by early spring the boxes and irrigation will be installed in the garden area. The school farm is in the early permitting stage. The plan is to have electrical, water and pads cut by the end of this coming summer. Funding will hopefully come from a new grant called the CTEIG from the state. It could bring in up to $100,000 each year for the next 3 years. Keep you fingers crossed for us!

The year has been great so far. The new Soil Chemistry class is going very well and the students seem to really enjoy it. The NCAP grant is paying for all the class supplies as well as training and sub days for me. The grant will also purchase a van for the program to use for contests and leadership conferences.

With the Small Rural Schools Perkins Grant from last year I was able to buy a bunch of new equipment for the shop. We are still installing some of the equipment. The paint booth is not finished yet, but I am hoping that by the early spring it will be done. The school garden is also moving along. The Ag Mechanics class will be installing the raised planter beds and the water lines.

We just finished the Ag Booster Dinner and I would like to say thank you to everyone that helped out. Attendance was down, but we still made money. A new CTE Grant is coming out from the State which has the potential to bring in up to $100,000 to the program each year for the next 3 years. I am hoping that we will receive that amount so that we are able to finally get the school farm started.

Wow, I can't beleive its been since August that I last posted. Well this has been a really crazy year, both personally and professionally. Both my father in law and my Dad passed away this school year. The Ag Booster dinner in the fall brought in about $16,000 which was helpful. Several new kids got involved at MFE/ALA which was great. I have filed for 2 large grants for the program and I just found out we got both. One was for $50,000 for the shop and the other is for over $300,000! I am already spending the $50,000 on new equipment for the shop. I have a great freshman class this year, 5 just got elected to office last weekend. Lauren Nunes has taken over the website from Summer Cassel since she is graduation. Fair projects are down this year, but hopefully more kids will get involved next year. We are making some big discipline changes at THS for next year which are long over due. Hopefully summer will be a little slower this year and I can spend some time with the family.